Zavanelli's manoeuvre

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Obstetrical manoeuvre sometimes used when the baby's head is born but the shoulders are stuck.

Description

Obstetrical manoeuvre sometimes used when the baby's head is born but the shoulders are stuck. The head is pushed gently back into the vagina and the baby is delivered immediately by Caesarean section.

The concept of cephalic replacement (Gunn Zavanelli-O'Leary manoeuvre) was developed for the treatment of undeliverable bilateral shoulder dystocia by David Gunn in 1976, when he was a senior obstetrics and gynecology resident at Vanderbilt.

The manoeuvre was named for Zavanelli by a professor at Stanford University who heard about it from Zavanelli, who was volunteer-teaching in the OBGYN wards at the time. The Stanford professor included the manoeuvre in a book that he subsequently published.

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